Both residential and industrial circuit breakers and switches are often locked in their OFF conditions by arranging some sort of locking device on the operating handles to prevent the handles from displacement for both economic as well as safety considerations. In vacant apartments, the circuit breakers are locked in their OFF conditions to prevent unauthorized use of electric utility power. Industrial circuit breakers are locked in their OFF positions when work is performed on remote electrical equipment to prevent inadvertent energization of the equipment with the possibility of damage to the repairman.
State-of-art locking devices are often quite complex and usually quite expensive. The circuit breakers are customized to receive the locking devices and generally require holes to be drilled or formed in the top surface to accommodate the locking devices. With the increased demand for such locking devices in both apartment buildings and industrial facilities, it would be economically-advantageous to provide a simple device that is readily installed onto the circuit breaker operating handles without requiring drilling holes in the top of the circuit breakers or any other change to the circuit breakers per se.
One purpose of the invention is to describe a simple and economic circuit breaker operating handle locking device in the form of a lockout block that readily accommodates existing circuit breaker operating handles without requiring any changes to the circuit breakers.